One misprint and one query in this week’s Azed.
The misprint, which was pretty obvious, is at 27 down. The query is about the parsing of COLON, so your suggestions are very welcome.
I have to report success in winning a book token for one of these puzzles a few weeks ago, so am now saving my stamps for the monthly competition. Many thanks to The Observer!
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | OLD MOUSTACHE |
Veteran maybe long after MOD outs possibly, about 50? (12, 2 words)
|
| L(50) in *(MOD OUTS), ACHE (long). I wasn’t familiar with this phrase, but the wordplay was clear enough. | ||
| 11 | SERA |
The drink containing river fluids (4)
|
| R(iver) in (the) SEA (the drink). | ||
| 12 | OPAH |
A shop reorganized, dropping section for fish (4)
|
| *(A (s)HOP). | ||
| 13 | RAWN |
Second mowing unrefined, before end of autumn (4)
|
| RAW (autum)N. | ||
| 14 | QUERCETIN |
What’s ground etc I found in mill – it may be good for the heart (9)
|
| *(ETC I) in QUERN (mill). | ||
| 16 | SCARP |
Craggy piece: ma has this one for cheese (5)
|
| (ma)SCARP(one). | ||
| 17 | POISHA |
Shop I diddled with a foreign coin (6)
|
| *(SHOP I) A. | ||
| 19 | DISCOER |
Clubman to find avoiding volume inside (7)
|
| DISCO(v)ER. | ||
| 20 | BADNESS |
Evil to terminate when it returns, in deep (7)
|
| END (rev) in BASS. | ||
| 23 | MALTESE |
Islanders from Man welcoming group from the east (7)
|
| SET (rev – from the east) inside MALE. The capitalisation of Man is of course misleading: Azed tolerates this piece of deception, but not its counterpart (when a proper noun has its capital letter removed). However, Azed will also often put such a proper name at the beginning of the clue, where it is capitalised anyway. | ||
| 26 | EMPANEL |
Pale men, trembling, to pick for jury service (7)
|
| *(PALE MEN). | ||
| 28 | DINGLE |
Some shading leafage may be seen herein (6)
|
| Hidden (in “shading leafage”) and & lit. | ||
| 29 | COLON |
Depression overcoming one farming settlement (5)
|
| I’m not sure about the parsing of this clue. One of the meanings of “colon” is, according to Chambers, “a colonist, esp a colonial farmer, in Algeria”. That would suggest that the definition is as I have underlined it. A col is indeed a depression, but I have difficulty in equating “on” to “overcoming”. Any suggestions? | ||
| 30 | GENERICAL |
Applicable to any group I see kept in by senior officer (9)
|
| I C (sounds like “I see”) inside GENERAL. This isn’t in fact an unindicated homophone, as Chambers has “see” as the phonetic spelling of the letter C. | ||
| 32 | ALAE |
Bony bits cooked in the English manner? (4)
|
| A LA E(nglish). | ||
| 33 | SUNG |
Celebrated dynasty (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 34 | KERO |
Fuel for lamp employed in jackeroo? (4)
|
| Hidden in “jackeroo”. | ||
| 35 | LAND-STEWARDS |
Estate managers getting sandals wet squelched at edges of road (12)
|
| R(oa)D in *(SANDALS WET). Strictly speaking, the clue seems to suggest that RD should follow the anagram. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | LEUCHAEMIA |
Catching upcoming signal, I heal ma suffering cancerous condition (10)
|
| CUE (rev) (signal) in *(I HEAL MA). | ||
| 3 | DREAM |
A wee Scotch wi’ dash of Evian in provoking mirth once (5)
|
| E(vian) in DRAM. | ||
| 4 | MARRON |
Norma’s excited having caught river yabby? (6)
|
| R(iver) in * NORMA. Both marron and yabby are terms for a type of Australian crayfish – I don’t know if they refer to the same species. | ||
| 5 | UPENDS |
Writer with little depth among American inverts (6)
|
| PEN (writer) D(epth) all inside US. | ||
| 6 | SAT |
Glutted, I ate away, placed at table (3)
|
| SAT(iate). I thought that “satiated” was the adjectival form, but Chambers confirms that “satiate” is a valid alternative. | ||
| 7 | THIOSALT |
Derivative of acid – a lot will be treated with this (8)
|
| *(A LOT THIS). | ||
| 8 | ARNICA |
Bass dispensed by pub, can I mixed in soothing tincture (6)
|
| *((b)AR CAN I). I was misled originally into making an anagram with PU(b), giving PUNICA, which is a shrub. | ||
| 9 | CASSONE |
Solid figure that fool’s enveloped in impressive chest (7)
|
| ASS (fool) in CONE (solid figure). | ||
| 10 | ENLARGE ON |
The misguided learn information about zilch to write at greater length about (9, 2 words)
|
| *LEARN, O (zilch) in GEN (information). | ||
| 15 | CHESSBOARD |
Lizzie was champing at the bit for Rev. William in chequer design (10)
|
| Spoonerism of “Bess chawed” (chewed or champed). | ||
| 16 | SUBHEDRAL |
Singular hard blue rocks, somewhat crystalline in form (9)
|
| S(ingular) *(HARD BLUE). | ||
| 18 | REINLESS |
What contributes to furore in lesson that’s out of control (8)
|
| Hidden in “furore in lesson”. | ||
| 21 | DIPNOAN |
Like distinctive fish swimming in a pond (7)
|
| *(IN A POND). | ||
| 22 | JAGGED |
Familiar car on pike moved unevenly (6)
|
| JAG (a familiar term for a brand of car), GED (a pike). | ||
| 24 | ALKENE |
Hydrocarbon disreputable house served in regular bevvy (6)
|
| KEN (a disreputable house) inside ALE. | ||
| 25 | TROIKA |
Lout interrupts skill upsetting team of three (6)
|
| OIK (lout) inside ART (skill, rev). | ||
| 27 | ULCER |
Spreading this source of corruption cold be cruel (5)
|
| *CRUEL. There is a (rare) misprint in the clue: “cold” instead of “could”. | ||
| 31 | NUT |
Obsessive lifting weight the old way (3)
|
| TUN (old spelling of “ton”, rev). |
Thanks for the blog fortunately the misprint was obvious and did not cause problems.
For COLON I agree with your definition , it is one who is farming a settlement , shortened for crossword brevity. Overcome = to cover = on ?? somewhat dubious .
For LANDSTEWARDS I had road=RD with the anagram at the edges of this, around it.
Roz @2 and @3: thanks for the support on the parsing of COLON. I shall be interested to see if there are any other suggestions. I’m not entirely with you about LAND-STEWARDS. The reference to “edges” in the clue seems to be to be telling us that we need to take the edges (i.e. the outer letters) of the word RoaD; it tells us nothing about where those letters should go, all we have left is “at”, which isn’t an inclusion indicator.
For the fake capital of Man I tend to agree, I do not really see why this is “allowed” but the opposite is frowned upon.
Not a good week for Chambers93, no sign of MARRON or KERO, QUERCETIN was there but not as a heart treatment, must be fairly new.
I liked the Spoonerism for CHESSBOARD , the Rev. William fooled me for a while, I did not know he was William Spooner .
I am not good at explaining , I do not know how you bloggers do it so succintly.
RD= road no need for EDGES yet . SANDALS WET an anagram , these new letters now placed at the EDGES of RD . ( only just , the S on the right. )
Roz @6: the fault is mine, as I had disregarded your explanation. If RD=ROAD then the clue is indeed sound. But Azed tends to indicate when he is using an abbreviation, which is why I thought that “edges” referred to the outside letters. I’d be interested to know what others think.
I just mentally replaced road by RD in the clue before thinking about edges. Do you think Azed normally indicates this sort of thing? Would he indicate ST=street in some way ? I will think about this and look out for it.
Thanks for the blog. Enjoyed this and found it a relatively quick solve, though I think I’m getting more familiar with Azed now. I had queries on exactly the two clues already discussed. In the end, as Roz suggests, I took “at edges of” to be an envelope indication, as RD is already an accepted abbr. of ROAD without the need to indicate outer letters.
‘On’ for ‘overcome’ was a bit of a shrug but the rest of the clue was clear.
CHESSBOARD and SCARP my favourites.
Thanks, Azed and bridgesong!
My top faves: SCRAP, CHESSBOARD and ULCER.
I agree with Roz@3 (and Jay@9) on LANDSTEWARDS.
No useful thoughts on COLON.
After about 2 years of doing Azed, I found this probably the easiest I’ve been faced with, not only because of the significant number of clues I solved on the first pass, but also because of the few I had to look up in the dictionary.
I must admit I didn’t give much thought to LANDSTEWARDS at the time but I see the problem as discussed above. Could it be that the usual abbreviation of road, RD, is indicated, with “at edges of” being the inclusion indicator.
As far as COLON goes I took the definition to be “one farming settlement” with overcoming=on. “on” is one of those words with many, many meanings but I agree it’s a bit of a stretch to meaning overcome. Chambers has for “overcome” – “to surmount, to come over, to cover” so it’s a small step to overcoming = surmounting, coming over, covering = on.
Congratulations on your book token bridgesong. 🙂 I don’t enter as the post is too slow from here and I don’t have a fax facility. I do enter the competition puzzles (by email) and got my first VHC for Sondage a couple of months ago which I wrote when in the UK on holiday.
Re LANDSTEWARDS, I agree with Roz. I think Rd is a sufficiently common abbreviation not to need indicating – like V for ‘very’ or S for ‘small’ or ‘second’. While I got CHESSBOARD, I was puzzled for some time by the parsing. Despite decades of doing barred crosswords, I never knew that Spooner was called William or was a Rev. I did discover that Elizabeth Gaskell was married to a Rev William – but that didn’t make any sense of the clue!
As regards 23ac, I believe that the Isle of Man, when referred to without ‘Isle of’, should have two Ns ie Mann, in which case the usage in the clue is not only misleading but incorrect as regards the surface reading.
Not just William MunroMaiden @12 but the Reverend William Archibald Spooner
I don’t even recall noticing the misprint in 27dn. I wonder if I subconsciously read what was meant to be there.
Thanks Azed and Bridgesong
29ac (COLON); How about on = “in contact with the upper surface of”, overcoming = “coming over”?
35ac (LANDSTEWARDS): I agree with RD = road, requiring no indication of the abbreviation. Compare 16dn, where “singular” clues S.
8dn (ARNICA): I think this should be (b)AR *(CAN I), avoiding the indirect anagram.
In the light of the comments so far, I withdraw my quibble about LAND-STEWARDS. I have, somewhat reluctantly, accepted that “overcoming” can mean “coming over” as has been pointed out by Tim C and Pelham Barton, so that does explain the clue for Colon.
Thanks, Tim C@13 – I’ll try to remember that for my future crossword ventures!